Page 92 of Senior

“Baby girl… how are you feeling?”

“I’m okay, Daddy. Eden prepared me for this one too. She said it’s a girl.”

I smiled. “You’re about to have hell on your hands. A little you running around, baby girl?”

“I’m prepared to smoke a lot of weed with this one. I just know she’s gonna be bad as hell.” She turned to Steph. “Are you ready to take on being a full time grandma so many times over? Daddy ain’t letting you leave him again.”

Steph giggled. “I’m ready. You know I love these babies as much as I love all of you. And for the record…” She wrapped her arms around my waist and peered up at me with a smile. “I’m not going anywhere this time. He’s stuck with me.”

I pecked her lips. “That ain’t no problem, love. No problem at all.”

I sat nervously in the parking lot of the adoption agency.

Right after the dinner where we learned we would be grandparents again, we sat down and had an in-depth conversation about following through on the foster/adoption thing. I was set on doing it and Senior fully supported it. Honestly, I believed this man would go along with whatever made me happy.

He loved his kids and grandkids, so I knew whatever child we fostered and eventually adopted would be loved beyond measure.

I felt a hand on my knee, making me realize that I was bouncing it uncontrollably.

“My love, you have to calm down.”

“I’m nervous, Senior.”

“It’s perfectly okay to be nervous about something like this.”

“I know, but I’m also scared. What if things go left?”

“As big a check as I wrote to expedite this process, it better go smooth.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want this kid to feel like we bought them.”

“We’re going through a private agency when we start the process, love. In a sense we kinda did.”

“Stanley!”

He chuckled. “I’m kidding. Don’t get your feathers all ruffled. Everything will be fine. We’ve raised enough kids to know what we’re doing. We got this. It’s just a matter of finding that one child we can’t go home without.”

“When you say it like that, it makes it sound like we are going to look for a puppy. Be serious, Stanley.”

He sighed and kissed my hand. “Baby. You got to calm down. I’m here with you. I want this with you and I’m gonna love whatever child we bring home at the end of this.”

He squeezed my cheeks together and placed several small pecks to my lips.

“Can I make a suggestion?” he asked.

“What?”

“Well, not really a suggestion. I just had a thought.”

I squinted at him. “About?”

“Money aside… you know the paperwork would look better if we were married.”

“That better not be your way of asking me.”

He chuckled. “It’s not. Your reaction does tell me I have a chance of getting a ‘yes’ this time though.”

I smirked. “Maybe.”